


Season's Greetings

by Twyd



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Attraction, Cheating, Christmas, Crushes, Drinking, Guilt, Holidays, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Years, Permanent Injury, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, Raijin Days, Reminiscing, Sexual Tension, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 21:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10795038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twyd/pseuds/Twyd
Summary: Izaya comes back one night over Christmas. Shizuo tells himself it doesn't matter. If Izaya can be the bigger person, then so can he.





	Season's Greetings

Shizuo holds on to his cigarette until there is barely a smoulder left, not crunching it under foot until he is right at the door of Russia Sushi. This wouldn’t be so bad, but, he does prefer quiet get-togethers. He tells himself he won’t stay long. Stepping inside, he looks around for a familiar face.

There’s Shinra, Kadota, Simon, of course, and-

Shizuo goes still when he sees who’s sitting next to Simon.

Sensing his gaze, Izaya also lifts his head and freezes.

Simon gets between them while they’re still staring, clapping a hand on Shizuo’s shoulder.

“Come on, you, two. It’s Christmas!” he proclaims cheerfully, steering Shizuo towards the bar, away from Izaya.

“What’s he _doing_ here?” Shizuo hisses. He looks over his shoulder, and sees Shinra similarly trying to distract Izaya, who looks as pissed as he feels.

“It’s Christmas!” Simon says again, like this explains everything. “And you know the rules, you can’t fight in here.”

He gives Shizuo’s shoulder a final clap, and leaves him before he can argue.

Tom comes to join him at the bar, looking guilty.

“You could have warned me,” Shizuo growls.

“You wouldn’t have come,” Tom says, which Shizuo doesn’t think is fair, even if it’s accurate.

“What’s he doing here, anyway? I thought I told that fucking louse to stay out of Ikebukuro, and it looked like it had finally sunk in.”

“It’s Christmas,” Tom says unnecessarily, like Simon had.

“Well, we didn’t need him last Christmas, or the Christmas before,” Shizuo points out.

“Come on, Shizuo,” Tom placates. “If Celty and Shinra can forgive him, you can't complain. He’s been with his sisters all day. And Simon wanted to see him. That’s all. Just drink and ignore him. I bet he won’t stay long.”

Shizuo turns round to look at Izaya again, unconvinced. Izaya is watching him, unsurprisingly, with his head on one hand, his eyebrows raised almost conspirationally, as if he also can’t believe the stupidity of their friends. There’s something different about his expression; it lacks its usual bite. Shizuo almost thinks he looks – welcoming, if not outright friendly, until he realises it’s just because he’s had a glass or two of sake.

Izaya shrugs then and turns back to Kadota, and Shizuo feels a tension he didn’t know was there give a little.

He tries not to let it get to him. If Izaya can be the bigger person, then so can he. He takes his drink and follows Tom to the other end of the table, as far away from Izaya as he can get.

* * *

 

As the night goes on, Shizuo manages to drink and talk and – almost enjoy himself. Izaya doesn’t leave early, but it doesn’t seem to matter. After years of sharing classrooms and mutual friends, their ability to ignore each other when the occasion called for it apparently still worked. The sake helped, of course. Sometimes, Shizuo could even forget Izaya was there, except when his laugh occasionally rang out over the table, but others were always laughing with him, and Shizuo couldn’t go over and ruin it.

Unable to resist the holiday business, Dennis and Simon let more and more people in, forcing their group closer together than before. At first it’s fine – the others circulate so that Shizuo and Izaya can talk to different people without going near each other. This ad-hoc game of musical chairs continues until someone goes to the bathroom, someone for a cigarette and, before he knows it, Shizuo is next to Izaya.

He had kept the informant in the corner of his eye most of the night, so he’s not quite sure how this happened. But, subdued by sake, Izaya is smiling at him again.

“Merry Christmas, Shizu-chan,” he chirps.

Even tipsy, even wishing him a Merry Christmas, Izaya still manages to sound snide.

“Yeah, yeah,” Shizuo growls.

He looks around in vain for someone not engrossed in their own conversations to serve as a middle man, but there’s no-one, nothing but silence and empty space between them. Shizuo wishes he’d saved his smoking break for now, and not just a minute before.

“I might go soon,” he says, to no-one in particular.

“Ah, that’s OK, I’ll go,” Izaya says, with uncharacteristic generosity. He picks up his glass. “Just let me finish this.”

By the time he does finish, however, Shinra and the others are back, and the conversation keeps going:  Simon ignores Izaya’s protests that he’s leaving and brings him another drink, and it doesn’t seem to matter.

* * *

 

 _Maybe this is all I needed to do,_ Shizuo thinks, bemused, watching Izaya rock back as he laughs, and for once, it’s not at someone’s expense. Shizuo’s been watching him all night, fascinated and frankly disbelieving of just how normal and nice the flea can be.  _Get some fucking alcohol down him more often._ But then, Shizuo is fairly inebriated himself, and therefore not the best judge.

A little further gone than Shizuo, Izaya lets his head fall forward as he laughs, lolling onto Shizuo's shoulder like he's forgotten who he's sitting next to. 

“Izaya,” Shizuo growls, but he almost laughs. “Come on, take it easy. You’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

“I already hate myself.”

He slurs his words slightly, but he says it so matter-of-factly, with a trace of self-pity, that it takes Shizuo a moment to process what he’s said. Shizuo lets him lean there, thinking nothing, until he feels the immastakable sensation of eyes on him. His eyes jump to the bar, and sure enough, Tom and Kadota are staring like he and Izaya are doing something x-rated.

Wearily, Shizuo flips them off. This was all their fault, anyway.

Izaya comes back to life when Dennis comes to check on him, thinking perhaps, understandably, that Shizuo must have managed to kill him. Izaya sits up like leaning on and cuddling up to his worst enemy was the most natural thing in the world, and Dennis, thankfully, doesn’t make a thing of it.

 "What are you doing for Christmas, Shizu-chan?" Izaya asks suddenly.

"I don't know," he mutters. "Seeing family. The usual."

"How about new year?"

"Nothing. I don't like new year."

“Ah, don't say that. You’ll be lonely.”

“I’m already lonely.”

He doesn't know why he says this, least of all to Izaya, but the informant smiles at him, and it is so full of understanding without being patronising, that it’s like talking to an old, old friend.

Izaya tops up their glasses, and doesn't pursue it.

* * *

The thing about Izaya Shizuo hadn’t thought about for years, the thing he’s only thinking about now because he’s getting close to trashed, is that when he’s not sneering, when he’s not being an evil little shit, Izaya is damn attractive. He is the kind of man girls stare at on subways. And some of the guys. He talks and moves and laughs so effortlessly, with an almost unconscious appeal, that Shizuo hates him for it. He always has.

He remembers, quite randomly, seeing Izaya take his sisters out for his ice-cream once, when he and Izaya had been about 15. Shizuo had been with Kasuka, in a corner booth outside of Izaya’s line of vision, and Shizuo’d been privy to an hour of Izaya being nice without seeming to fake it, without having an agenda, making his sisters shriek with laughter and letting them tease him, giving them piggy backs outside, and eating ice cream that he probably didn’t even like. It had been unnerving, to say the least.

His mind jumps from this to a detention he’d once been in with Izaya, when their sadistic teacher had made them write down five things they liked or respected about each other, and he’d had about a minute of blind panic when the first thing he had thought of had been that Izaya was good-looking. Yes, he’s smart, he’s good with his sisters, he’s damn good at parkour, he even played the guitar, or so Shizuo had heard, but the thing that stood out the most for him, if he had to pick, was that the flea was too fucking cute for it to be fair.

“Izaya,” he says suddenly.

Izaya raises his head from his hand.

“…Ye-es?”

“Do you remember that teacher who put us in detention and made us write stuff we like about each other?”

 “Narita?” he says at once. Then he starts laughing. “I remember that. I was really offended because you could only think of, like, three things for me.”

 _Four_ , Shizuo thinks silently, but he obviously doesn’t say this. He’d written four and kept the fifth locked safely away in his head.

Izaya is rocking slightly in his seat now, tilting his head back as he tries to remember.

“I put that you were…let me think. You have a good relationship with your brother, you’re probably a good person, you’re super good at Parkour, that you’re genuine and, what was the last one…?”

Shizuo remembers all this, vaguely, as Izaya counts them off on his fingers. He remembers expecting snide and underhanded comments at the time, when Izaya had started scribbling so quickly, and the surprise he’d felt when they turned out to be what they were.

And, his brain had continued making even more helpful suggestions, like how Izaya smelt good under his cologne when they got close in a fight, how he was pure muscle, how sleek his hair looked in the sun, how he was always so composed, so effortlessly perfect, even after hours of running and fighting.

“And that you’re good fun,” Izaya finishes, snapping him back to the present.

Shizuo shifts uncomfortably, like his entire thought process had been on display.

“You remember all that?”

“I remember everything,” Izaya says, which probably isn’t a lie. “Why did you want the guy’s name? Do you want to look him up in case you think of the fifth one?”

Shizuo’s about to respond, when Simon comes over with shots, and, being a tipsy mess, Izaya’s instantly distracted and forgets all about him.

Shizuo waits until they have somewhat more privacy again, when people around them are either at the bar or bathroom or smoking, and Izaya has finished his drink and is shifting around like he’s thinking of calling it a night, and Shizuo says, not quite steadily.

“I put that you were smart,” he says, and Izaya’s eyes instantly focus back on his own. “That you always have a clear head. And then all I could think of was how cute you were, and that freaked me out so much that I couldn’t think of anything else.”

Izaya stares at him. Even tipsy, he has a wide eyed look of alarm, but Shizuo is at that stage where he doesn’t care, where he doesn’t see the consequences of anything that comes out of his mouth. Then Izaya laughs, with delight rather than malice, like Shizuo is obviously joking, so Shizuo doesn't get worked up.

“That’s so nice,” he says, like Shizuo has complimented him on something in his house, something meaningless and every-day. “What else did you put? Or what else did you think of?”

“I dunno,” Shizuo says. “Might have put that you’re really fucking fast, or that you’re probably a little nicer than you seem, or something.”

“That’s nice,” he repeats, swaying slightly. “Ah, I don’t think you needed to freak out about it. I think it happens to everyone at some point.”

“What does?”

“You know.” Izaya is still looking at his drink as if contemplating whether he could take another (and he really, really couldn’t). “When you fall for that one person you really, really shouldn’t.”

Shizuo stares at him.

“OK, not fall for,” Izaya counters, as if Shizuo is arguing with him. “But when you – you know. _You_ _know._ You were there.”

Izaya rests his forehead in his hands then, the way people do when the room is swaying a little too much, and after a minute or two he still doesn’t taken them away.

“You OK?” Shizuo asks.

Izaya speaks without lifting his head, and it takes Shizuo a moment to decipher it.

_“Floor’s’tipping.”_

“You want to go outside?”

Shizuo takes a cursory glance around the restaurant, in case anyone has more experience with a drunk Izaya than he does, but he doesn’t look very hard.

“Izaya-kun,” he says, prodding the flea when he doesn’t move. “You need to go outside.”

Izaya nods, and he’s close enough for his hair to brush Shizuo’s cheek.

“Lightweight,” Shizuo says. He takes Izaya’s wrist and pulls him to his feet. “Come on.”

Izaya follows him outside like a little dog.

“Fuck,” he says once they’re outside, falling back against the wall. He tips his head back to the sky. “If you’re going to kill me, Shizu-chan, now’s the time to do it. I’m a fucking mess.”

Shizuo starts fumbling with his lighter.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he says.

Babysitting Izaya really hadn’t been how he expected the night to go down, but the drink, the unprompted conversation with Izaya in which he had not been provoked once, made something very old and very tense loosen inside of him.

“Do you want me to call you a cab?”

Izaya shakes his head.

He’s still leaning there when Shizuo finishes his cigarette, not looking his best, and Shizuo’s not sure what to do with him.

“You’re such a lightweight,” he repeats, shaking his head.

“Says you,” Izaya fires back unexpectedly. “You and your high school confessions.”

Shizuo snorts.

“It was one confession.”

“Why, how many are there?”

His tone is teasing, but he looks right at Shizuo with a challenge in his eyes, and a familiar intensity Shizuo’s almost missed. He doesn’t move when Shizuo steps into his space, or when he leans in. His arms go round Shizuo’s neck, not with the poor coordination of a drunk going with anything, but with the strength of someone getting exactly what they want. He arches on his toes to reach Shizuo better, and Shizuo pushes him back against the wall as if to keep him there.

Shizuo’s so out of it that it takes him a moment to register that Izaya has started pushing him back and saying his name.

“Shizuo.”

He opens his eyes and finds Izaya staring at him, sober and irrevocably, impossibly sad. “I’m seeing someone.”

Shizuo stares at him, his hold loosening with surprise and hurt. It echoes several times in his head before it goes in.

“What?” he says finally, stupidly. “Who?”

“No-one you know. Obviously.”

He shifts slightly, palms on Shizuo’s shoulders holding him back. He looks as sad as if he’s told Shizuo he’s dying.

“For how long?”

Izaya sighs and looks away.

"Does it matter?"

“Is it serious?”

“Yes,” he says, sounding tired.

“How serious?” Shizuo dogs, even though he knows he’s flogging a dead horse. “A-few-months serious, or married-with-kids serious?”

Izaya just looks at him without saying anything. He doesn’t have to.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, as Shizuo backs away from him. “I didn’t – I didn’t think – “

Shizuo shuts the door, cutting off his words.

 

A few of them catch his eye from the bar, and their faces fall when they see the look on his. He ignores them and goes to the bathroom. Leans against the sink and ducks his head, knuckles turning white, feeling the sake and the nausea whirl around his stomach.

 By the time he makes it back outside, Izaya is long gone.

* * *

 

Izaya wakes up in Kine’s arms. The hangover he had expected, but the pain in his legs is screaming. He groans without realising he does it, and a moment later Kine is pushing a glass of water and a pill into his hand.

“Take this.”

He takes it obediently, holding the other man’s wrist to steady the glass. When the pain is a little more manageable, he peers at Kine through his hair, and sees at once that the other man doesn’t know. It doesn’t make him feel any better.

“You must have walked for miles before you could find a cab,” the other man says disapprovingly. “You should have called.”

Izaya remembers why he didn’t, how awful it would be to call Kine for help after doing what he did.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Kine looks at him a bit oddly at his tone.

“It’s all right,” he says.

Izaya leans against him and closes his eyes, while Kine strokes his back and hair.

“I’ve never seen you like that before,” he muses. “Did you have a good time?”

Izaya nods into his throat.

"I'm glad. I know you were nervous about going back."

He pulls Kine back when he tries to get up.

“I have to tell you something.”

“OK.” He looks at Izaya with concern, and Izaya wishes he didn’t, wishes he wasn't so good to him. “Tell me.”

“Someone kissed me last night,” he says. He looks away when Kine’s face falls. “And I kissed back. I’m so sorry.”

Kine just sits there staring at him, the silence between them becoming unbearable.

“Who?” he asks eventually.

The air catches in Izaya’s throat. He considers lying, considers saying it doesn’t matter, but finally admits,

“Shizuo Heiwajima.”

He can’t tell if this makes it better or worse. 

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats, and tears come to his eyes then because his legs hurt so much, they hurt so much it makes it hard to care about any of this, he’s in that much pain.

Kine sees and immediately puts his arms back around him.

“Lie down,” he says, very gently.

“Don’t. Don’t be good to me.”

“Don’t be silly.” He eases Izaya back into bed and brings him another pill, something stronger. “It’s all right, Izaya,” he says, voice heavy with sadness. He strokes Izaya’s hair while the informant drifts off, the pain turning into something distant and bearable. “These things happen.”

Izaya shakes his head, tries to explain that they don’t, they _shouldn’t_ , and that they didn’t mean anything when they did.

“You didn’t need to walk around in the early hours to punish yourself for it,” he says, and Izaya just clings to his hand, desperately, stupidly grateful for it.

* * *

 

It’s worse when he comes to, the pain all but gone along with his hangover, and he has to look Kine in the eye without the cloud of pain.

“I’m so sorry,” he says again.

Kine is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, frowning, looking like he hasn’t slept.

“What happened?”

 “We were outside,” he says. “He was smoking. We’d been talking about – school, or something. And he kissed me and I let him.”

“Then what happened?”

“I stopped him,” he says. “I told him I was seeing someone.”

Kine looks at him then for the first time.

“What did he do?”

Izaya frowns. It was all rather blurry still.

“He went inside,” he says. “And I left.”

Kine goes back to frowning at his coffee.

“It’s all right,” he says eventually, like he had the night before. “Honestly, I’m not all that surprised.”

He softens when he sees the look on Izaya’s face.

“I don’t mean it like that,” he says. “I just mean – you and I grew close when you were very vulnerable. You mean the world to me, but I wasn't sure I could make you happy. Especially once you're better”

Izaya shakes his head, though it was hard to pinpoint anything from the past few years that had made him happy, per se. If it hadn’t been for Kine alternately coaxing and chiding him, cooking for him, doing so much for him that Izaya couldn’t not give anything back, Izaya’s pretty sure he still wouldn’t be walking, let alone working and living his life. But still, none of it was quite being happy, or himself.

Kine looks at him pityingly.

“There’s more to life than feeling looked-after, Izaya,” he says, as if reading his mind. “You deserve more.”

“You do make me happy,” Izaya mumbles.

“I love you,” he says, and Izaya's head jerks up with surprise. It is the first time he’d said it.

* * *

 When he’s had more time to process what happened, Shizuo accepts it with a bleak kind of finality.

It’s been two years, after all. They are 27 now.   _Of course_ Izaya is in a relationship. He’s clearly grown up, made a fresh start of it somewhere. And Shizuo is still here, still doing the same old shit. He is the only person he knows not in a committed relationship. He tries, now and then, but they never last.

He spends the day nursing his hangover, and ignores everyone’s calls.  

* * *

 

The next time Shizuo sees Izaya, it’s after Christmas, and the world is slowly getting back to normal. Izaya’s tapping away at a laptop in Russia Sushi, eyes dark like he hasn’t slept. He stiffens when he sees Shizuo.

“I’m working here,” he admits, when Shizuo stares him out. “Just as a one-off. It won’t be for very long.”

“OK,” he says.

Izaya bites his lip and looks away, clearly uncomfortable, and Shizuo hovers uncertainly, unsure whether to pursue it or leave him to it. In the end, he blurts,

“Did you tell him?”

Izaya’s eyes jump to his, looking almost panicked. It somehow doesn’t occur to Shizuo that Izaya could be dating a girl, although he knows he has in the past.

“Yes,” he admits.

Shizuo waits.

“And?”

Izaya’s eyes darken, as if Shizuo is deliberately goading him.

“And what?” he snaps. “What do you think?”

He shuts the laptop and puts it in his bag, pushing past Shizuo out the door. Shizuo doesn’t try to stop him.

* * *

 

He doesn’t see Izaya for a while after that and, when he does, he almost thinks he’s hallucinating, as Izaya is perched on the edge of a roof near Raijin, like a cat, although he’s supposed to be disabled. He used to come up here during their chases in school, knowing Shizuo couldn’t make the jump even though he’s taller, and would sit there goading and taunting him until Shizuo would feel he could pull the whole damn city up out of the ground and throw it, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

“What are you doing up there?” he says.

“Just sitting here.” Izaya’s legs are screaming from the climb - he'd felt like pushing himself - but he smiles through the pain. “Today’s my last day.”

“Good,” Shizuo says. “You little bastard,” he adds, for effect, because he doesn’t like the smug look on Izaya’s face. He experiences a vague sense of déjà vu, of looking up at Izaya there after one of their chases, leaning on his knees and panting, while Izaya would smirk down at him like he owned the world, not even breaking a sweat.

“Beaten by a cripple,” he taunts now. “You’re losing your touch, monster.”

“You’re not a cripple,” he states. He’s somehow not irked by the m word, like he used to be. He doesn’t tell Izaya he figured out how to get up there through the fire exit about a year ago.

Izaya’s turning himself round on the ledge when Shizuo gets up there himself, stiffly, like he’s in pain. He’s so preoccupied with this that he doesn’t notice Shizuo until the last minute, giving a start and almost tumbling backwards, and Shizuo’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist.

“I thought you’d changed,” Shizuo tells him, feeling the strength in the bones between his fingers.

“You haven’t either,” Izaya counters. “Still can’t catch me.” He makes a half-hearted attempt to free his wrist. “This doesn’t count.”

“I guess not.”

Izaya tries to stand then, and gives an obvious flinch of pain.

Shizuo loosens his grip.

“Hurt yourself?”

“No,” he says through clenched teeth, though it’s quite obvious he can’t really move. He peeks at Shizuo with almost panicked eyes, and Shizuo feels something inside himself deflate.

“It’s true, then,” he says. “You’re scared of me now.”

Izaya glares at him, the panic disappearing as if it had never been there in the first place.

“I’m not.”

Shizuo holds his gaze.

“Prove it.”

Izaya keeps glaring at him. Shizuo’s about to give up and back off when Izaya grabs a fistful of his shirt with his free hand, yanking him forward to his mouth. Shizuo has to catch his balance on the ledge as he does, the force of it nearly knocking them both over, and Izaya clings to him, kissing him like it's a fight he wants to win.

“Oh, man,” Shizuo murmurs, when Izaya finally, finally lets him go. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that.” He eyes the drop behind them. “I swear. Mad as a box of fucking cats.”

Izaya just smiles at him, in a way that’s not quite friendly and not quite hostile.

“What did you expect?” he says.

With the feeling of being dismissed, Shizuo steps back, giving him space, and Izaya eases himself off the wall with a wince. Shizuo somehow knows better than to offer to help.

“Are you still…?”

Izaya meets his eyes, and suddenly looks as sad as he had when Shizuo had first kissed him.

“Yes,” he says. He doesn’t elaborate.

“OK,” Shizuo says, feeling stupid for asking.

“It’s for the best,” Izaya says, and Shizuo studies him as he says it, as he doesn’t sound 100%.

“You sure?”

Izaya’s eyes jump back to his again, with that almost bird-like panic.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. Don’t,” he says, when Shizuo steps in again. “Please. I already feel terrible.”

Shizuo’s eyebrows arch a touch. Not because he doesn’t believe him, he does, but because it’s so surprising to see.

“Well. Have a nice life, Shizu-chan,” he says now, and Shizuo’s eyes narrow.

“You too, flea.”

He doesn’t step out of Izaya’s way. Izaya could go round him, but he’s still in pain and clearly doesn’t want to. They stand there glaring at each other until Shizuo caves, steps forward and kisses him again and, this time, Izaya doesn’t stop him.

* * *

 

He’d been stupid to think something would actually come of it. Stupid. Izaya had made his choice quite clear. He's clearly happier with whoever and wherever he's living now, and anyway, there was no point in raking up old shit. 

Shizuo goes through the day on auto-pilot, genuinely considers having a drink in the afternoon. Fucking new year. There's nothing new about it, nothing to celebrate, just another 365 days of the same old shit.

The door goes when he's thinking this. Probably Kasuka. He always had a sixth sense whenever his brother is feeling miserable.

He pulls back the door, and it is Izaya standing there, with an oddly nervous look in his eyes.

“Hi,” he says, when Shizuo just stares at him. "I - I'm..."

He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to. Shizuo takes him by the wrist and pulls him inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I wrote this at Christmas and just never got round to posting it. Hope you like it!


End file.
